When the owner of this placed moved to Ulting Wick with her family almost 20 years ago, she found an old farmyard full of rusting machinery as well as a handful of glorious black barns. Black barns are a common feature dotting the eastern edges of the rural English landscape from Norfolk to Sussex, and they create a perfect backdrop for bold flowers.
The barns at Ulting Wick are so big and lumbering, they offer a free and almost ubiquitous backdrop against which to grow delicate things. The accommodating anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’ was made especially for black backdrops. Bare branches of a climbing rose take on sculptural qualities. The former threshing barn looms over a lawn punctuated with zinnia ‘Dahlia Mix’ and white cosmos ‘Purity’ make a bold statement in the background of these barns. One side of the barn is almost covered with the large-leafed crimson glory vine, or Vitis coignetiae. As the season progresses, the vine takes on color from the border below. This includes dahlias and helianthus of various types; tithonia ‘Torch’. The final flush from rosa ‘Phyllis Bide’ wraps around the corner of an old stable. Angel’s trumpet (brugmansia) lives in oversized pots in the shelter of a former barn.Behind the border are waving fronds of feather reed grass, or ‘Karl Foerster’. Verbena bonariensis congregate around the side door with an old concrete ramp. With its fresh colors and distinguished shapes, this South American shrub really responds to a stark backdrop. Against a soothing and quiet background, the effect produced fields of flowers put into relief and vines transformed into sculptures.
If you want to enjoy fresh English countryside views with eye-catchy flowers and classic old barns, look at the pics below.
